First off, as you can now tell, I am an admin. I've kept this secret for awhile because I didn't want the general public to harass me with pointless requests or waste my time. I'm not mirkosp, go pester the mudkip for crap instead of me. However, something important affecting the site has happened so I need to come out to update people on this situation.

At the end of the day yesterday, I received a legitimate and confirmed “cease and desist” request from a major record label concerning AMVs. It basically said that the copyright holders of a group of musical artists would like the Org to stop distributing videos using their music. After speaking today with the attorney representing the group, we were able to come to the agreement that the links to the videos using their music should be removed from the site and then all would be good.

What this means is that local downloads and links to videos by this group of artists are now no longer available. The artists are: Evenescence, Creed, and Seether. Any video containing any song by these artists are automatically blocked and can no longer be linked from or downloaded from this site. These videos now have the message “Links for this video are no longer available.”

I asked what brought all of this to their attention, thus requiring them to take action. The attorney replied that someone, most likely a fan, contacted them (either the record label or through the band’s web site) asking if the videos hosted here at the Org were created by the band. Since they were not, they had no choice but to issue a cease and desist request.

If you have created an AMV by any of these bands, there is no need to worry. Their concern was about the online availability by streaming or downloads of their songs. If the AMV you have created is not available for download on your own web site, you are safe. The catalog entry itself for the video does not put you at any risk. The download availability of the videos from this site are what put this site at risk and no one else.

It is unfortunate that this has happened. But through careful negotiations, we have been able to avoid having the entire site shut down (or worse). For now, I am going to lie down on the floor and take two weeks to get my heart rate back to normal.